There are a variety of available vehicle lifts designed to raise a vehicle above a ground surface. These lifts are often employed to enable access to the underside of the vehicle for maintenance work. A particular segment of lifts, known as parking lifts, is configured to provide additional parking space by lifting one vehicle to a sufficient height to enable a second vehicle to be parked beneath the first. Parking lifts generally include a platform on which the vehicle to be raised is positioned, in contrast to lifts for maintenance which generally include one or more lifting arms rather than a platform so as to avoid obstructing access to the underside of the vehicle.
Parking lifts can take a variety of forms including post lifts that include one, two, four, or more vertical posts that support one or more platforms on which one or more vehicles can be disposed. Parking lifts may also include scissor-lifts that employ a plurality of pivotably connected legs arranged in a pantograph or crossing X-like pattern that are pivoted to extend or retract the overall length of the assembly and thus the height of a platform disposed thereon.
These known lifts suffer a variety of drawbacks. Many forms of lifts require the lifting structure to be anchored to the underlying surface to prevent toppling of structures when under load and require the underlying surface to be engineered to meet heightened standards to support the weight of the lift and vehicle. Many known lifts are designed to reduce space requirements for their installation and use but then suffer from being too constrained in available space in which to position the vehicle to be lifted and the vehicle to be positioned under the lifted vehicle. For example, the posts or scissor-lifts supporting the platform may obstruct opening of the doors of the vehicle parked underneath the platform. This makes entering and exiting the vehicle difficult and increases the risk of damaging the doors of the vehicle through contact with the lift. Known lifts also provide somewhat steep entrance ramps that are difficult for low-riding vehicles, such as sports cars, to traverse without the underside of the vehicle contacting the ramp and potentially damaging the vehicle.